Rolfe
Adult human female
You have to consider the circumstances which led to the SNP's apparent "landslide from nowhere" in 2015. I don't think the LibDems could possibly replicate that.
First, the SNP had been the reasonably close "second party" in Scotland for a very long time. The party was unable to make a breakthrough in Westminster seats because their relatively even geographical spread of votes meant that they piled up dozens of "good loser" results but didn't get FPTP seats. But the baseline support was there.
Second, the introduction of the Scottish parliament with its PR electoral system allowed them to gain a level of representation they'd never had before. This led to their politicians getting more exposure and becoming better known and after a couple of electoral cycles they were looking like a better bet than the rather tired Labour administration. They squeaked into government in Scotland. That was ten years ago.
Something big happened then. Holyrood was suddenly run by a party that wasn't taking its orders from a Westminster head office and which - probably even more importantly - put its best talent into Holyrood. Voters liked this a lot in comparison to the forelock-tugging subservience of Scottish Labour. At the next election they got a landslide in Holyrood although they were still sitting on only 6 Westminster MPs.
Then we had the independence referendum. 45% of the voters voted Yes, and many Yes voters felt very cheated when the fine promises of "don't leave the UK, stay and lead the UK" from the No camp turned into EVEL while the votes were still being counted. Rather than accepting "the will of the people" the defeated Yes movement turned to the SNP en masse.
This was genuinely phenomemal. I've met an eyepopping number of people who weren't even interested in politics before who tell me they got online in the early hours of the morning of 19th September to join the SNP. Membership went up from about 25,000 to around 90,000 in the space of a few weeks. (It's currently sitting at over 120,000. That is getting on for 3% of the adult population.) "Intention to vote" opinion polls suddenly and dramatically saw SNP support climb to the 45% mark and beyond.
Now obviously it's not a direct correspondence, but if you have 45% of the population (the Yes vote) piling in behind one party, plus a few more who like the party but weren't convinced about independence, you're going to break the FPTP system. The following spring the SNP got over 49% of the Westminster vote in Scotland and obviously that is going to get nearly all the seats.
(It's different with PR of course. In 2016 the SNP got 46.5% in the Holyrood election which was a slight increase even over the 2011 landslide, but because of the vagaries of the system they came out a few seats less, leading to jibes about losing support and having no mandate.)
So I don't see how the LibDems could possibly hope to emulate this. There isn't a PR system around to give them a fairer crack of the whip. (In Scotland their support is so low that even with PR they only have 5 MSPs.) The big "losing cause" that might have drawn people to the party would be Remain of course, but it's not happening. If it was going to happen it would have happened by now.
I sometimes wonder if Labour could have pulled that trick in the summer of last year. I remember the morning of the EU referendum result and despite being heartened that we were probably going to get another crack at independence as a result, I was pretty shocked. I would far far rather we'd all stayed in the EU and the Yes movement worked quietly and slowly towards their goal. I sense that an awful lot of people in England were extremely shocked, without any upside for them at all. Labour were the party that were in a position to capitalise on that shock.
What would have happened if a strong Labour leader had announced that 52% wasn't nearly enough to justify such a huge constitutional change? (After all, Scotland voted by 52% to 48% in favour of a devolved parliament in 1979 and the then Labour government refused to implement it for exactly that reason.) What if a charismatic and popular leader had announced that he or she would work their socks off to prevent Brexit, or have a second referendum, or retain EU citizenship, or free movement, or membership of the single market, or whatever was possible/plausible and chimed with the desires of the 48%?
If it had been possible to become a nexus for the 48, as the SNP became the nexus for the 45, it would again be possible to break the FPTP system. I don't know if it was possible in June/July 2016 but it's certainly not possible now. The carpe diem moment has passed.
So although superficially it may be possible to look at the SNP's 2015 landslide and say, well it can happen, I really don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell of it happening in the present circumstances. England and Wales are screwed for the want of an effective opposition.
Scotland has a chance, but is at the mercy of another Project Fear being amplified once again by virtually all the mainstream media. We'll just have to see. Northern Ireland's best hope is bloody obvious, but do they have the sense to realise that? Again we'll have to see.
What we aren't going to see is an English landslide for the LibDems.
Last edited:
) only a Tory rebellion could have stopped the bill and that was not going to happen.
